by Rick

R’giap quoting Martin Buber:

"you can only gain power over the nightmare by calling it by its real name"

I agree with this religious scholar and admire his works and writings. Rgiap has quoted him before and I thank him for introducing him to me. And in an attempt to describe this nightmare, it is exactly those words of his above that I am attempting to heed. To many who live here in the US, the name of this nightmare is not ‘America’. Nor is its name ‘Amerika’.

I have often been a stickler for language when it comes to discussing a subject. Over the last couple of years, I have asked readers of Moon of Alabama to consider everything from the meaning of “conservative” to a more basic mathematical question of “What exactly is a ‘billion’ dollars anyway?” I now wish to not only ponder a definition of ‘America’, but more importantly, place some questions of humanism before us.
Again, though least in importance, is this from Wikipedia:

Cont. reading: From/To the ‘AMERICA IS LOST’ Department

News & views …

John Kerry is a coward …

… as are the other people in that room …

Some sane people speaking out against War on Iran:

"There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran," Abizaid said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

[…]
"War, in the state-to-state sense, in that part of the region would be devastating for everybody, and we should avoid it _ in my mind _ to every extent that we can," he said. link

more important:

"We need always to remember that the use of force could only be resorted to when … every other option has been exhausted. I don’t think we are at all there," el Baradei told reporters on the sidelines of the ongoing 51st annual regular session of the IAEA General Conference.
[…]
He said the IAEA has found no evidence of "weaponization" from Iranian nuclear enrichment work, although during his speech at the conference he regretted Iran’s refusal to fall in line with UN resolutions. link

another voice:

Iran’s nuclear issue could be settled through negotiation, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said here Monday.

"I am convinced that the solution through negotiation could be achieved," she told the media during the ongoing 51st annual regular session of the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
[…]
As for the possibility of launching military action against Iran predicted recently by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Plassnik said that Kouchner was the only one who could answer this question with his own opinion, noting she could not understand why Kouchner used such warlike words.
link

Who can? Kouchner and Sarkozy have cought some foot in mouth disease. The sensivity of their public statements on Iran is even below the level of Ahmedinejad’s speeches.

The above quotes leave a stall taste though. Why do these people feel a need to start this campaign now? What do they know?

How Bush will get a very conservative man confirmed as new attorney general by a Democratic Senate:

1. Secretly pick a very conservative candidate.
2. Launch rumors of recommending other, more divisive and nutty candidates, Theodore B. Olson and Michael Chertoff, who have obviously no chance of being confirmed.
3. Let the Dems prance against those.
4. Pull out the ‘compromise’ candidate, retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey
5. Let Fred Hiatt rant against the candidate for not being conservative enough.
6. Bribe a ‘moderate’ Democrat, Senator Schumer, to your side.
7. Point to the candidates ‘terrorism experience’.
8. See the Democrats fold.

So this is what the U.S. will end up with:

Cont. reading: Dems and the New AG

In his long-awaited memoir – out tomorrow in the US – Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes: ‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’
[…]
[A] survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq – lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels.
Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m

—

Shortly after “Atlas Shrugged” was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic’s comment that “the book was written out of hate.” Mr. Greenspan wrote: “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.”
Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism

Busy today and no idea for a quick post.

But you may have some news or views you want to share. Please do so …

(bigger)

The Quiet Site is a family run park situated in a secluded position amongst the stunning flows of the river Rethe. This well maintained, picturesque site offers great facilities and easy access to the waters.

 

We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy.
Address by the President to the Nation on the Way Forward in Iraq , September 13, 2007

—

The following nations are partners in the Coalition:

*Albania     *Armenia     *Austrailia     *Azerbaijan     *Bosnia and Herzegovina     *Bulgaria     *Czech Republic     *Denmark     *El Salvador    *Estonia    *Georgia    *Japan    *Kazakhstan    *South Korea    *Latvia    *Lithuania    *Macedonia    *Moldova    *Mongolia    *Poland    *Romania    *Singapore    *Slovakia    *Ukraine    *United Kingdom
Official Website of Multi-National Force – Iraq: Coalition Partners, last changed June 1, 2007

Somehow eleven nations seem to be Missed in Action, went Absent without Leave or have been Killed in Action by someone in Iraq. Who forgot to tell the Clown in Chief?

Do we recognize this scheme?

1. anonymous official sources ‘leak’ false claims about a foreign WMD threat to a major U.S. newspapers
2. soon afterward a famous administration official is interviewed by a friendly TV station
3. the administration official vaguely acknowledges the newspaper report
4. other news media report this as independent confirmation
5. the public mind assumes there is a ‘real imminent threat’

It has happened before and right before our eyes, it is happening again.

Let’s recap:

On September 8 2002 the New York Times published a ‘report’ by Michael Gordon and Judith Miller: U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest For A-Bomb Parts

Cont. reading: Propaganda: 2002-Iraq 2007-Syria

Abu Risha, the  U.S. collaborator and show puppy for The Anbar Model, has been killed by an IED near his home.

Bush and his poodles in uniform claim that Al Qaida is responsible for this. They never heard of a genuine national resistance anyway.

But this wasn’t a suicide attack, the hallmark of Al Qaida. So who else could be responsible?

Two days ago Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark, posted on: People and Power: Al-Anbar

Cont. reading: The End of the Anbar Model

News & views – another open thread …

Oil Rises to Record $80.18 on Larger-Than-Expected Supply Drop
Dollar Falls to Record Low Versus the Euro on Rate Differential

There is some hedge fund speculation driving the numbers above, but more important are two fundamental issue hidden behind those.

The minor of these is where things are made. The Gulf states and Russia are buying most of the stuff they import on a Euro base. If the Dollar falls, they are losing buying power. Their obvious solution is to increase their income in Dollars (holding it fairly constant in Euros) by increasing the oil price.

But the major issue here is confidence. This has very much to do with Iraq and the inability of the U.S. to pull itself out of that quagmire.

The financial/commercial world has paid the U.S. for delivering international stability by putting money into Dollar assets. This allowed the U.S. to live beyond its homegrown financial income capacity.

Now the U.S. is no longer able to deliver stability, especially for the big oil exporters in the Middle East.

On the issue of financial stability the U.S. has blown it by allowing its citizens unreasonable speculation without the means to mitigate the consequences.

On the geo-political side the U.S. has proven itself impotent. Sure there are still lots of nukes and planes available, but that is not exactly the kind of leadership the world is yearning for.

The U.S. is spending some $700+ billion per year for ‘defense’. But it would have problems to deliver even one brigade, some 4,000 soldiers, to any contingency should one occur. What can the U.S. do if someone shoots the king of Jordan or the president of Georgia?

With no political ability to end the war on Iraq, as was aptly demonstrated by the bipartisan comedy played in congress this week, there is hardly a chance that the U.S. will regain such capacity within a forseeable timeframe.

Compare the 700+ billion for the military with some $10 billion the U.S. spends for the State Department. The role of the global arbitrator is no longer believable when the only instrument the arbitrator has is total annihilation of this or that country.

Hence no further need to pay for that dubious service.

UPDATED below:

On August 31 the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by John Bolton on the negotiations about nuclear disarmament with North Korea. At the end, quite out of nowhere, he inserts this paragraph:

Finally, we need to learn the details of North Korean nuclear cooperation with other countries. We know that both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched. Whether and to what extent Iran, Syria or others might be "safe havens" for North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, or may have already participated with or benefited from it, must be made clear.

Bolton is usually more assertive with WMD claims. Here he seems to be unsure about a nuclear connection between North Korea and Syria. But the meme is out.

It gets picked up, enforced and recycled. The New York Times writes today:

Cont. reading: The Building of a Nuclear Syria Meme

What and why did Israel bomb in Syria?

Last weeks attack on something in Syria by the Israeli Air Force is quite mysterious. That such an attack happened is obvious. Turkey found external fuel tanks of an Israeli jet that had fallen on its soil near the Syrian border. Military aircrafts jettison their externals tanks to gain maneuverability when under fire.

According to a fresh CNN report based on U.S. sources:

Cont. reading: Another Middle East Mystery

September 11 was a catastrophe.

The event and its aftermath were heavily influenced by the shenanigans of Cheney, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bremer. The actions were based on bi-partisan support.  They led to thousands and thousands of maimed people and many dead.

History again demonstrated the urge of the U.S. to eliminate any government that doesn’t support its model of greed. This again delivered hunger and poverty to a people that committed nothing but the heresy of independence.

The target country had been isolated by sanctions for quite some time. The economy was in bad shape. Then tanks rolled through the streets and the presidential palace was bombed.

After ‘regime change’ followed the implementation of the models of one of the most destructive economists, Milton Friedman.

The ‘economic shock treatment’, disguised as ‘freedom’, was aiming at privatizing the extraction of the countries resources for the benefit of U.S. companies. It destroyed the society’s fabric.

The people protesting the machinations were exposed to state sponsered terrorism, imprisoned, tortured and executed.

It took many, many years for Chile to overcome the disaster.

9/11 was a very bad day in 1973. It was a bad day in 2001 too. Those two bad days were not unrelated.

Cont. reading: Remember 9/11

Petraeus hearing:

Petraeus is supposed to start his opening statement, but his mike doesn’t work and it takes a while.

Meanwhile some stuff, supposed to be his written testimony, gets passed around.

Senator: "Chairman I am getting a chart, not a statement."
Chairman: "That’s what’s provided."

Eleven month ago I wrote:

The discussion within the U.S. foreign policy establishment on the future of Iraq has come to a conclusion. The U.S. will, now officially, work to dissolve the Iraqi nation and state into three independent statelets under a powerless sham national government and, of course, total U.S. control.

That opinion was based on leaks about the Iraq Study Group report, which emphasized partition.

The implementation of that strategy started this year’s spring when the U.S. military began to pay off local tribal folks, warlords and highway robbers, to ‘pacify’ Anbar province.

The U.S. media never acknowledged the 180 degree turn from national government support to partitioning. Bush essentially faked them with his purported escalation (surge) reason of giving space for national consolidation. While everybody watched Maliki, the military was building private Sunni armies and the Kurds started to sell off their oil to U.S. companies to gain economic independence.

The usual media pundits never acknowledged the new strategy. The first, crow eating admission of the partitioning scheme came by neocon Charles Krauthammer last week:

A weak, partitioned Iraq is not the best outcome. We had hoped for much more. Our original objective was a democratic and unified post-Hussein Iraq. But it has turned out to be a bridge too far.

The Democrats have no intent to stop the implementation of this part of the bipartisan ISG report. Therefore they will agree to prolong the escalation. But they like Krauthammer will have to eat more crows because partitioning is also a few bridges too far:

Gunmen blew up two bridges on the highway near 160km region west of Ramadi on Friday morning using explosive charges," …  The incident raises to five the number of bridges which have been destroyed on the highway in Anbar since the beginning of 2007.

The systematic destruction of bridges is not local infighting or some Al Qaida activity, but strategic preparation for the coming decisive battle against the occupation force. Despite the recent propaganda, Anbar is certainly not pacified. This year the US took 152 casualties there, 18 of those since August 1.

While Bush smirks to Anbar Sheik Sattar Abu Risha, that guy certainly has his own agenda. It is unlikely to be a U.S. friendly one. Partitioning Iraq has no advantage for him.

Baghdad has been cleansed of most Sunnis. They will want it back. They will take the millions the U.S. is pushing to them right now and when the ‘surge’ ends for lack of troops, they will make their move.

Earlier this month the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, wrote a piece about the British football (soccer) club Arsenal which is in the process of being bought/ruled by the Uzbeki oligarch Usmanov:

"Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal* chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist."

After pressure from Usmanov’s lawyers, Craig’s website hoster seems to have removed that post from Craig’s site. Murray explains it here.

I have no idea if Craig Murray is right in his assessment, but I support his right to voice his learned opinion.

Usmanov is free to defend himself against Craig’s allegations by publishing a counter-opinion. ‘Defending’ himself by supressing free speech is not the right way.

Though the Google cache has been cleaned too, copies of Murray’s piece are alive here, here and here, on general USEnet servers in soc.alt.usa (hehe) and elsewhere.

These sources are potentially endangered. The best method against censorship is mass posting. Please help keep Craig’s writing alive and fight censorship by saving, distributing and re-posting more copies wherever you can.

Note: The text below was deleted from Craig Murray’s website in an attempt to suppress the public distribution of his opinion on Mr. Usmanov. Craig Murray is a former British ambassador to Usbekistan. I do not endorse his opinion in any way, but provide the text for the sole purpose of discussion of the issue and the censorship attempt. Feel free to distribute it elsewhere.

If Mr. Usmanov is willing to issue a rebutal to Murray’s opinion, I’ll be happy to provide that too.

The text below was copied on Sep. 9 from soc.culture.usa

—

 

Craig Murray’s website – Sep 2, 2007
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/09/alisher_usmanov.html

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal* chairman, is a Vicious Thug,
Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist

by Craig Murray

I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you.
You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the
media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a
pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers,
including the latter:

"Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet
regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the
offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after
President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these
matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov
does not have any criminal record."

Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was
in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who
rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke "Gorbachev",
a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed.
That is completely untrue.

Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved
through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at
first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991
President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the "Pardon" because of his
alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major
international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on
Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had
Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin
standing on the tanks outside the White House.

Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the
World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into
the "privatisation" process at a time when gangster muscle was used to
secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian
Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.

Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President
Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who
engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was
kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the
country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom
Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to
secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.

Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of
his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through
Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski.
Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college.
Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests
outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s
bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas
supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.

Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal
democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has
bought out – with the owners having no choice – the only independent
national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio
stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have
been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish
this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he
bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a
pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning
defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death
from a window.

All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in
great detail here:
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html

TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/3a6m6j

Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he
was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and
the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that
this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an
everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand
page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving
Usmanov please add a comment.

I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram
to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured
successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I
also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by
Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a
Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the
priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had
never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly
nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.

Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football
now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters – as
tight-knit and homespun a football community as any – can be heard
saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can
compete with Chelsea*.

I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher
Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.

(*Arsenal & *Chelsea = leading UK football teams)